


We Are At The Crossroads

by semele



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:11:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 8,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ongoing collection of Bellamy/Raven ficlets written for various tumblr prompt memes. Ratings vary from PG to NC-17. Set in an AU in which after s2, the Delinquents leave Camp Jaha and set up a separate settlement. In each story, the original prompt is the title of the chapter.</p><p>Some of the stories here were previously in a different collection of ficlets, but since the universe they function in is getting more and more fleshed out, I decided to post them separately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Raven gets pregnant

**Author's Note:**

> _My dragonfly,  
>  my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing  
> for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,  
> and this is the map of my heart, the landscape  
> after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is  
> a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me  
> tight, it’s getting cold._
> 
> R. Siken, _Snow and Dirty Rain_

The first time it doesn't happen, she can't even tell if she's happy or sad.

Bellamy is quiet around her, so easy and soft-footed she wants to shake him, no, stop, you fucking stop. You wanted this.

But it didn't work out, and she _isn't_ , and she hates him a little when he sits behind her that night, and starts rubbing her back to ease her period cramps.

"If you're not sure, we can stop trying," he says at one point, and she almost barks in response.

"I'll never be sure."

(It's easier, you see: thinking of his thoughts and not of her own.)

***

The next month, she is four days late, and that's when she panics, panics right in front of Monroe's little Tim, and watches the kid run to get an adult like she's a character from some very bad movie. The nearest adult turns out to be Octavia, so at least she gets that: a solid arm around her middle, but none of the worried glances, and concerned questions replaced by a mug of cold water.

Sometimes Raven really loves Octavia.

They don't really talk, because there is nothing to talk about. Raven isn't sure how much Bellamy told his sister, and she doesn't care either way, but she doesn't want to go into any details herself. Ostensibly, everything is plain and simple: they need to start having more children, or else their village is screwed, and it looks bad when Raven and Bellamy, being unofficial leaders, do not take one for the team. She is twenty five now, old enough to understand numbers, sixty adults, eleven children, and time trickling down, new people moving in fast, but not nearly fast enough.

(Apart from Octavia, there are now three other girls in the village who have brothers. Raven doesn't count. She buried hers years ago.)

***

She starts vomiting her guts out in the middle of winter, and this is it, this is really it, how romantic: she retches, and Bellamy holds her hair back for her, dips his hand in the snow to press it expertly to the nape of her neck. They should do this more often.

She can hear him worry from where he sits at their work table, and for a moment, she wants to believe that she is the kind of person that would do this for him, grit her teeth and give him the child he craves so much it makes him volunteer almost every time anyone in the village needs a babysitter. 

There is a half-finished loom in their cabin, a project she works on whenever it's too cold to go outside. A Grounder woman showed her how to build it in exchange for a good knife, and so now she's fiddling with frames and levers so Bellamy can operate the whole thing easily, warp and woof, no more sewing for scraps. See? She is devoted. She makes things for him.

Oh, what a load of crap.

***

She is already large come late summer, a lot larger than she should be, or maybe she just seems like this because most days, no one really notices how small her frame actually is. She's sitting on the grass with O and Monroe, mending fishing nets with furious precision, look at her, just look at her, so composed and calmed down, nothing like the mess from a year or five before. She can do this. Oh, she so can do this.

(She dreams of her mother that night, and stares her down hatefully, for the first time in her life revelling in Rosa's blank stare and idle fingers, happy and triumphant and easy.

Then Rosa catches her hand, and her gaze is focused, wickedly smart in a way that Raven doesn't want to remember, a sharp eye fixed on her stomach the way it used to fix on Finn, or Zero-G books, or Raven's insolent face.

 _I don't know, little bird. Can you?_ )


	2. Drunk

It's not like she hasn't seen him drunk before.

Whenever something good happens in their village, something great and truly exhilarating, a new alliance, or a good harvest, or a childbirth, Bellamy Blake inevitably ends up accepting a suspicious cup of _something_ from Monty, then getting completely buzzed in under thirty minutes, because despite his size, he's the greatest freaking lightweight Raven has ever seen.

Booze makes him soft, and clumsy, and ridiculous, like he was watching the world through blurred eyes, and he even manages to make Raven laugh sometimes, throw light-hearted insults at him when she catches him stare at her adoringly, tilt his head and burst out laughing, _we did good, Raven, this is so good_.

So now, this thing happening right now isn't new: tipsy Bellamy sitting on a fallen log between Octavia and Nate, celebrating a trade deal that has the potential to keep them fed and clothed for years to come.

What's new is that for the first time, he's extending the cup to her.

He picks his moment well, everyone but O way too busy having fun to notice, so this is just between them. _If you want to try,_ his hand says, _now could be a good time_.

She sits on the ground between his spread legs, her back resting comfortably against his stomach, and with how they're positioned, he probably feels her shake her head more than he sees it.

He doesn't insist, not even once during the time she sits with him, his hand warm on her shoulder. He grows louder with every passing hour, louder and softer and warmer, until he buries his face in the crook of her neck and whispers some nonsense, something he wouldn't normally say unless they were alone, but his arms never lock around her, and anyway, even if Nate can hear them, he's too drunk to care.

The next morning, she recites it all back to him before she lets him have his first cup of water.


	3. Back rubs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ([Prompted by swammysdimples.](http://swammysdimples.tumblr.com/post/128710331745/ravenbells-swammysdimples-ravenbells))

When it happens for the first time, he doesn't think twice about it. 

It must be December by now, and their first winter on the ground is as bad as they expected, even if they're far away from Camp Jaha, and they don't have to worry about politics, or weapons, or votes. Just survival. 

Bellamy is sharing a tent with Raven because at the start, no one else could bear to be around them and their resentments, or maybe they were the only ones not even a little bit afraid of each other’s sharp voices and murderous fingers. Now, after weeks of biting cold and freezing rains, they're beyond caring about proprieties, or inhibitions, or even personal space. If they didn't cling to each other every night, no matter how bad it smells, they'd be dead by now. 

So it's easy to roll his eyes when he sees her cringe with pain, easy to spread his legs and gesture for her to sit in front of him. 

"Come here. You look like you're about to die. Is it your back?"

She looks ready to chew him out for asking so bluntly, or maybe for not pretending that she's perfectly healthy, so he cuts her off before she can speak. 

"Come on. It's better for everyone if you can move tomorrow. Don’t be a fucking martyr."

When he touches her shoulders, they’re completely stiff, probably out of anger for the way he spoke to her, but he only keeps his hands so high for as long as it’s necessary to warm them, then slides them under her clothes, and starts rubbing her lower back.

He has no idea how to give a proper massage, but he does know that a lot of her pain comes from her abused muscles being exposed to the cold, so he just tries to be gentle to not damage anything further, and focuses on sharing his warmth with her.

He loves her, of course he does. But love doesn’t really have a place here.

***

Life doesn’t stop just because it’s cold outside, and since Bellamy lives with Raven, he ends up doing loads of heavy lifting. She won’t let him hold her up or pick her up, but he still ends up carrying their water and picking their firewood, not to mention all the things he needs to do in camp; building a smokehouse and a fence, and helping in endless tiny chores he can’t even name by the end of the day, because all he knows is that he’s sore all over.

That’s how it happens again: after a few days, he comes to the tent Raven has claimed for her workshop to bring her the dinner she’s completely forgotten about, and the next thing he knows, he’s sitting on a stool with Raven hovering over him, and meticulously rubbing his clothed shoulders.

 _Stop coddling me,_ he should probably bark. _I’ll be okay._

Truth is, he leans into her hands like a cat, happy to be touched like he’s a person and not a shield. Only after a few minutes it occurs to him that she’s paying him back, kindness for kindness and care for care. 

“You know you don’t have to, right?” he asks, but doesn’t make as much as a move; doesn’t even lift his head to look at her.

All he gets in response is an exasperated sigh and a slightly harder push of her fingers, rough and loving in a very Raven way.

***

So it’s not surprising, really, that she doesn’t shy away when he sits behind her in their tent the very next evening, and gently presses his thumbs into the nape of her neck.

If you think about it, he was always the one more scared of his own fingers.

“I’m not in pain,” is all she says when he starts moving his hands.

“I know.”

She can’t take off a single layer of clothing, because not even his body could shield her from the December weather, but she still accepts his touch like it’s intimate; like his fingers aren’t clumsy and stiff from the day’s work, and like he doesn’t have so much grime behind his nails he’s probably leaving smears on her jacket.

This is still one of the cleanest things he’s ever done for love.


	4. Birth

He’s smarter than to think that having a child is going to fix anything.

It’s poetic, really – O puts a tiny bundle of a girl in his arms like he’s seven again, but there is no need to keep her quiet, not with how the whole village howls and laughs in delight for the twelfth time. 

They’ve been with Raven the whole day, Bellamy and Octavia; rubbed her back and walked with her, then held her up as she knelt and pushed, screamed and bled, _just one more, darling, please, one more_. In the end, there is nothing magical about a birth; it’s fear and pain, and unnecessary violence, just like he remembers. Raven’s fingers close on his wrist, and he speaks nonsense to her, not caring that O and Lincoln are listening, not caring about anything anymore, apart from those five desperate fingers.

Then there is a whole new person in his arms, and Raven’s hands are reaching for her greedily, _damn it, Bell, let me see,_ and for a single selfish second, he finds himself stalling.

The parallels, he knows, are just begging for him to see them, but he’s smarter than that as well.

So he handles the child to Raven, then watches her watch, curious eyes and curious fingers, and a very defiant jaw setting itself quietly beyond his understanding. Game on.

“Do you know how you’ll name her?” Octavia asks as she stands beside him, and there is something in her face that tells him this is just one of many questions, one of the many keys to her that he holds, _yes, it was just like this, and I named you after a book before I was old enough to know how terrible it was_.

But that’s tomorrow, this talk with O. For now, he shakes his head.

“That’s for Raven to decide,” he says, and catches Lincoln give him a look, one part surprise two parts approval, like he just followed some ancient custom he wasn’t even aware of.

It doesn’t really matter.

(Raven barely sleeps for the next four days, and when he tries to make her see sense, they end up fighting like only exhausted people can, loudly and viciously, _don’t you ever_ and _you don’t tell me_ , and oh, he has something to prove even when he later apologizes for making a cradle into a battlefield.

It takes him another week to stop washing his hands almost to the bone like a parody of a bad play before he touches either of them. He’s supposed to be smarter than this.)


	5. Working through failed sex like adults

In Bellamy’s head, there is a full list of failures.

Like: that first time, angry fingers in his hair, on his hips and on his chest, then him gone, spilled and spent as if Raven’s pain was the hottest thing on Earth. Look at him, look at how ready he was, as if he was still seventeen, and all he needed in terms of foreplay was a single word whispered suggestively above his ear.

(What a joke. He needed so much more than that when he was seventeen.)

Things are softer between them now; easier and smoother, and so amicable he’s allowed to rub her back for her as she’s sprawled on top of him, lazy and trusting, and laughing when she feels him grow hard from their innocent touches as if he was still seventeen.

This is exactly what she expects of him.

***

(There are other failures as well: a bullet lodged in the wrong back and a brace placed on the wrong knee; there are swords slicing wrong skin, and her voice calling for the wrong hands when he’s too busy spilling so much blood that there is barely any untouched skin left from his elbows to his very fingertips.

Those parts, she makes him promise to forget before she moves in with him, so he lies through his teeth to make her stay.)

***

In Aventine, failures become, somehow, softer around the edges; not flesh and blood, but stolen blankets and overcooked stew, and an occasional clumsy fingernail making a scratch that heals in a day. They’re growing easy, it seems, in their old age.

Twenty eight is older than he really expected to live.

This failure is easier as well, and in all honesty, it isn’t for the lack of trying; his head is between her legs, and her head is somewhere else before she pushes him away impatiently, _let go, I’m sore, it’s not happening._

“Are you okay?” he asks after he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

(It’s not an echo, you see; they’re past that.)

“Come here.”

She never tells him what he holds her through that night; if it’s a memory or some fresh hell, or a mundane bad day that left her aching in all the wrong places. But when his hand moves down, palm resting comfortingly on her lower back, she doesn’t chide him for thinking of scars.

(In the morning, half-sleepy and soft, he puts his mouth on her until she sings, once, twice, thrice. This is how _past that_ they are.)


	6. Bellamy's birthday

A few months pass in Aventine before Bellamy realizes that they kind of stopped measuring time. Oh, he knows it’s been a few months, but that’s no rocket science. It was early spring when they walked out of Camp Jaha, and now summer is in full bloom, hot and abundant; the very first time in Bellamy’s life that he has more food at hand than he can possibly eat. With this and all the other good things going on, it’s no wonder he has little interest in minding the time.

“Shouldn’t your birthday be somewhere around now?” asks O when they’re on one of their countless scavenger hunts, and Bellamy actually has to stop and think about it.

“I guess? No idea what day it is today. Do you know?”

O shakes her head and smiles in a way that spells trouble, but before she can tell him what kind of a celebration she has in mind for him, they hear Miller’s excited voice, and run towards him only to find Raven and Miller elbows deep in… something.

“Is that…” Bellamy tries, but Raven interrupts him him excitedly, impatient and grinning.

“A car. And a good one, not some piece of junk.”

O tilts her head, her expression dubious.

“Looks like a piece of junk to me.”

“It just needs some love,” Raven shoots back before she straightens up and makes for Bellamy’s backpack, where she keeps her tools. “Get your asses to work. We’re stripping this baby to the bone. It’s good metal.”

Miller looks obviously disappointed, but Raven silences him with a glare before he can protest.

“It runs on gas,” she explains. “You wouldn’t be able to get it moving anyway. Go on.”

“I bet you could make it run on solars.”

“I could. I won’t. Now get your ass inside and try getting the seats now.”

Personally, Bellamy doesn’t know shit about cars, but he does know this look on Raven’s face. She’s going to ponder this for a few more hours, draw a few clumsy sketches, then start building… things. So far, he’s only seen her put together small devices out of scraps, but now that she has a whole car at her disposal, Bellamy fully expects her to end up with a bicycle, a microwave, five water-heating units, a can opener, and something suspicious that turns out to be a sex toy.

He of all people should know.

Stripping the car in what Raven deems _the right way_ takes them until dusk, and even then, they’re not done, so they decide to camp right here, and even put the freshly dislodged car seats around the fire as they settle to eat supper. Raven, Bellamy can tell, flops on hers gratefully, and her leg is probably giving her more grief than she’s willing to admit, but when he offers to rub the kinks out of her back, she shakes her head.

_Later._

It’s O who breaks out the hooch and proposes a toast to Bellamy’s health. When he raises his eyebrows at her, she shrugs.

“Might as well. Unless you wanna run to Camp Jaha and ask them if it’s July already?”

They don’t set their calendar straight until November, when people from Camp Jaha show up in Aventine to offer them a deal, and so Bellamy never learns if it really was his birthday, the day they found the car. What he does know – what he remembers, even as years go by, and cover the memory under a pile of other scavenges, and other evenings with friends around the fire – is how Raven did eventually move to sit in front of him, her skin warmed from having sat close to the fire. He remembers she leaned forward, the nape of her neck exposed for a kiss, and explained in loving detail how she was going to use the scrap metal for rudimentary but functioning sewage system, and adjust some engine parts so she can heat water, and…

“How about a microwave?” he asked before he could bite his tongue, and she twisted her head to look back, baffled.

“A what? Holy shit, Bell, you’re a lightweight.”

He remembers he never asked about that can opener, though later, long, long minutes later, he did ask about something else. And the way she laughed when he did that – that’s what he remembers best of all.


	7. Finding the other wearing their clothes

It kind of happens all the time. To be fair, Raven has a good reason to take his stuff – Bellamy has clothes lying around in every corner of their quarters, and most of them are things to mend that people started to casually drop on him once they realized he was raised by a seamstress. So when Raven manages to find in this mess a piece of clothing that actually belongs to either of them, she probably doesn’t care that much whether it’s his or hers. She just grabs it, puts it on, and goes to get breakfast, muttering about how he needs to finally get a proper workshop before things get too ridiculous. _You’re the new village tailor, Bell,_ she once said, rolling her eyes. _Just get over it._

So, he gets it. She doesn’t care what she puts on her back as long as she’s warm. And he believes this explanation right until he realizes just how often he catches her wearing his shirts.

He owns three in total, and Raven looks kind of funny in each and every one of them – like a shapeless mass swimming in excess fabric, with sleeves covering her fingertips and the hem brushing her thighs. Moving around like this just can’t be comfortable, but when he points it out, she just huffs at him, and changes the subject.

“You know, if you don’t have enough clothes, I could just fit one for you. It’s easy, I’d just take it here…”

But she bats away his hand when he grabs the fabric at her waist, and makes an impatient sound.

“Don’t you have things to do that you actually need done? Don’t worry about the shirt.”

“Raven, it’s not a…”

He finally lets go when she distracts him with a kiss, and as weeks go by, it simply becomes a fact of life – Raven keeps going to work in his comically oversized shirts, and no one has the guts to say a word about it to her. Bellamy could easily have found fabric to make her a new shirt that’s actually her size, but there is just something about Raven’s attitude that makes him think this might not be the best idea. Anyway, it’s not a big deal. He has three shirts, and it’s not like he needs to be wearing more than one at any given moment.

(Once spring comes and the ground unfreezes, their people start talking about going out scavenging again, and when they finally agree on a day, Bellamy goes back home, and packs a bag with a few days’ rations and a spare shirt just in case. The next day, Raven gets up at dawn together with him just to say goodbye, and on a whim, Bellamy picks up the shirt he totally didn’t leave behind on purpose, shakes out the wrinkles, and holds it out to Raven so she can slip her hands in the sleeves.

He pretends not to notice that as soon as she’s dressed, she hugs herself reflexively, the excessive fabric surrounding her like a pair of familiar arms, before she turns around to give him a kiss.)


	8. Raven bonds with Lincoln

It takes them actual years.

Given how they started out, it’s a wonder they manage to become friendly at all. There was, Raven remembers with some shame, a storm and a poison, and two red hot wires cracking dangerously in her hands. She likes to think she’d do better now, or maybe do wiser, hard to tell. She doesn’t fool herself that she wouldn’t still kill for family, but she does hope that after all her years on the ground, she wouldn’t kill for them stupidly.

So she doesn’t exactly regret what she once did to Lincoln, but somehow she seems to remember it a lot longer than he does.

The Ark didn’t really have a word for who Lincoln is to Raven, but it’s fitting that she can’t find one even now; words are Bellamy’s things, and it’s his job to make a big deal out of them. Raven and Lincoln never try to come up with a good word for each other. She doesn’t need one, and he simply has it.

It’s funny at first, how different he seems; how strange, and distant, and forest-wise, like someone from an old tale Raven never bothered to listen to properly. Theoretically, she has many opportunities to learn better; like that one time Lincoln stubs his toe on a tree root, and hisses out a curse that sounds beyond familiar, or the evening they spend together with Octavia and Bellamy weaving nets for fishing. Maybe it feels less strange for Lincoln to be privy to siblings tossing words around like there is nothing special in the intimacy they share, but Raven knows herself for an intruder the moment the first memory falls off Bellamy’s careless lips. Lincoln, it seems, doesn’t have siblings either, but he still smiles fondly as he listens to chatter he only half-understands. At some point, he finally cracks up, his eyes searching Raven’s for support, and if she were sappy like Bellamy, this would be a great profound moment for them; laughing together because they’re family, two fools loving quite foolishly.

Truth is, the moment doesn’t come until two years later; camp fire, and moonshine, and harvest celebration. There is some trading still going on, and in Raven’s defence, the farmer she’s haggling with is trying to cheat her so blatantly she breaks out swearing badly enough that even Bellamy gives her a surprised look. Then he brings her a drink.

She doesn’t exactly remember how she ends up sitting next to Lincoln, both of them laughing loudly at her outburst, then planning an elaborate revenge. Maybe she’s still on the roll, or maybe it’s Lincoln who calls the farmer a few choice names, but by morning, Raven has a handful of new curses to choose from, _so you stop swearing like my grandmother_ , and that, in her book, is quite profound enough.


	9. Haggling

If Bellamy thinks about it, his life is now surprisingly be boring.

He didn’t think it would be; going to the ground was supposed to be quick and bloody, a quick sacrifice so that O can make it in the nuclear wasteland, or a war like the wars of the old. In the end, there was blood, yes, and there was also war, but to Bellamy’s surprise, there was also afterwards.

And this is afterwards: a village on a hill, a cozy wooden hut, a workshop for sewing, and Raven Reyes haggling mercilessly in Spanish with an angry-looking Grounder woman as he stands by her helplessly, a pair of questionably cozy fur leggings in his hands.

It’s been some years, and he likes to think that he has a basic grasp of Spanish by now – by which he mostly means that he recognizes some rude expressions and basic numbers. In this case, he’s reasonably confident that the trade concerns his leggings, in exchange for three… something.

“What are you getting us, exactly?”

“Strawberries. Look offended.”

So he puts on his best Scary Leader face, and the Grounder throws her hands up in the air, exasperated by their theatrics, and spits out a word he’s pretty sure means _two_. Raven is not impressed.

“Raven, no one else will buy those,” he tries quietly. “I fucked them up. Just get rid…”

“She doesn’t know that.”

In the end, a heavy bag of dirt lands at his feet, and he reaches for it, mesmerized, to discover four small plants he remembers from pictures in his Earth Skills textbooks. _Strawberries._

“I can’t believe you managed that,” he says with a laugh. “How do we plant them?”

“No clue, but the only other thing she had for trade was a crappy knife, so I went for food.”

Bellamy shakes his head, amused, and goes down on his haunches to pick up the bag carefully, ready to get it straight to Monty.

“You were pretty damn scary out there.”

Raven gives him a lopsided smile, then nudges his side with her fist, light-hearted. Casually, boringly light-hearted. Who would’ve thought, five years ago?

“Yeah. I thought I was.”


	10. Bellamy and Lincoln

There are a few things in his life Bellamy never thought he’d have to deal with. Like: a brother-in-law.

They never call each other like this, of course. ‘Brother’ is too serious a word for Bellamy to toss around, and it’s not like there is much of a law in their village, so, whatever. Lincoln is Lincoln. No need for a pet name.

Right.

The first one that settles before anything else is ‘neighbor’, nice and neutral, not a big deal. Bellamy is now a person who has neighbors, actual neighbors, and not just people with whom he shares walls. He has Octavia and Lincoln, Monty and Miller, and Raven a bit further to the front, at least for a time. They all use the same rainwater container and the same firewood shed, and they even share a small garden plot where they can grow things to spice up the boredom of common rations. Sometimes Lincoln brings weird seeds even Monty never heard about, and refuses to tell anyone what they are until they bloom, because this is the kind of person he is. Lincoln keeps to himself.

Another word: ‘healer’. Bellamy learns this one the hard way, when some moron grazes him with an arrow on a hunt, and then weeks later when Raven is the first person in the village to catch pneumonia in the winter. In those scary days, Lincoln fills Bellamy’s hut with the smell of bad booze and mint, and he spends two days straight by Raven’s bed, calm and reassuring until she gets better, speaking words Bellamy can’t understand. He just hopes Raven can.

Then there is ‘family’, and this one is hard for Bellamy to swallow at first, but then it sort of sneaks up on him over the years. It’s because O loves Lincoln, he tells himself, but then there are days like this one, their third summer in the village, and Lincoln, half-exasperated, half-amused, teaches Bellamy to swim in a nearby lake as O and Raven cry actual tears of laughter seeing him lose his balance time after time after time. At some point, Lincoln shrugs and dunks him in the shallow water, then walks back to the shore as Bellamy coughs and sputters, trying to get his wet hair out of his eyes and grinning like a fool. _Next year_ , he promises himself before he can think about it, _we’re gonna race_. Actually, it takes him five.

Then there is one other word, never spoken because it’s too damn obvious, and even Bellamy doesn’t need to put a name to every single thing he sees. It’s a quiet thing, a drink shared on a lazy day, or a big pot of broth they cook together in the fall, maybe a book passing from hand to hand. There are stories in the stars just like there are stories in the stones, and on bad winter days, those stories are what keeps them alive, swapped back and forth until it gets warmer, easier, brighter. 

Yeah, no one needs a word for that at all.


	11. The Blakes being nerds

Not long after they finish the wall around Aventine, Bellamy gets into some nerdy as fuck argument with Octavia.

He tries to explain it to Raven later, but he’s too busy rolling his eyes to give proper context; it’s something about walls and gates, and a boy who killed his brother, and hey, Bell, have you ever thought that your mom read you some weird-ass fairy tales? What she gets is that they have a bet now, except they can’t find anyone to settle it for them.

“There was a book, I’m sure,” says Bellamy stubbornly. “Romulus killed Remus so he could have Rome for himself.”

Soon it becomes a running joke no one but the Blakes wants to understand, because it’s funnier to just listen to them bicker about power grabs, city walls, and gods of death. When Monty manages a trade deal from heaven, and gets the first donkey in the village, he even names it Remus to keep the joke going, and Octavia Blake does not disappoint.

“Hey, that’s bad luck,” she pipes in with a wicked smile. “Remus couldn’t be in Rome because he violated the city boundary, and had to be sacrificed. Your donkey…”

“There was no sacrifice. And even if there was, that was Palatine.”

Neither Monty nor Raven know what Palatine is, but just in case they name the next donkey just that.

It takes twelve years for Bell to trade for some history book and bring it into the village with such an air of triumph that about twenty people gather around the fire in the evening just to see him finally settle the bet.

Which means he has about twenty people hooting and laughing when he gets up, crouches in front of his sister, and gives her and epic piggy back ride around the outer wall.


	12. 69

The first time they try, it’s a disaster.

They end up in a laughing, howling pile of limbs, Raven’s ass flat on Bellamy’s chest, her forehead pressed to his hip as she tries (and fails) to catch a proper breath.

“Next time, you’re on top,” she manages eventually, and tries not to press on anything sensitive as she pushes herself up a little.

“Yeah, like hell. Hold on, let me…”

He tries to help her roll off him, but all they achieve is her ass landing square on his chest again, and making him let out a comical groan, half-amused, half-annoyed.

“If we have to call for someone to help, please don’t let it be Miller,” says Raven quietly before making another effort. “Fuck… I told you, I should’ve kept the brace.”

“Try it next time, but you’ll be the one coming up with a good cover story for why I have a hinge pressed into my cheek. Good luck.”

In the end, Bellamy solves the problem by rolling to his side, his arm securing Raven’s bum leg as he carefully brings it down his chest and over his head. She’s pretty sure she almost kicks him at least twice, but he’s a gentleman about it and doesn’t comment. Maybe because they’re both laughing too hard.

***

A few days later, they _do_ try with him on top, and on the bright side – she comes. He buries his face between her legs with enthusiasm, even if he’s cautious about his cock near her mouth when she’s flat on her back, and for the first thirty seconds, everything works out well.

Then he forgets himself, moves his body forward get a better lock on her clit now that he’s approaching it upside down, and suddenly, he’s out of her reach. Not that she has time to complain, because he does get a good lock on her clit, and, well. It doesn’t really take long after that.

Afterwards, he rolls off her easily, so at least there’s that. But Raven still stares him down sternly, feeling sheepish and slightly annoyed.

“Not fair,” she complains when she sees him wipe his grinning face with the top of his hand. “We had a deal.”

Bellamy shrugs.

“I got distracted. You liked it.”

She did. But that’s not what she _wanted_.

***

For the next few weeks, Raven catches herself considering, on-and-off, whether good old sixty-nine isn’t simply yet another thing on her “fuck my leg” list, right next to traveling and not having pain in her lower back. And then Bellamy surprises her.

“Come here,” he says, and pats the bed in front of him. “On your side.”

They’re naked already, and about to have the first actually good, uninterrupted evening in days, so Raven is more than curious to see what he has in mind, and she listens as quickly as she possibly can. Lies down on her side, bum leg tucked under the good one, and waits.

When she sees him turn his body and lie down, his legs up on the pillow and his head near her hips, she gasps, excited, even before he touches her.

Raven isn’t a fool, and she knows Bellamy isn’t a big fan of getting head. She can talk him into it sometimes, and when she does, he loves it, but very often, he just wriggles out of it. Some days, she thinks he just doesn’t like the mess, but usually, she knows better.

So now she watches, mesmerized and hungry, as he positions himself without any prompting from her; his head cushioned on her thigh, her healthy leg hooked over his shoulder, his hand kneading her ass gently to help her keep open. And his cock, hard against his stomach. Right within her reach.

She doesn’t ask if he’s sure, doesn’t offer him an out. She simply takes him in her hand, and scoots closer, so that she can race him, and kiss the tip of his cock before he starts kissing her open.

She isn’t really sure who wins, but she does know that they let out a moan almost simultaneously, his muffled between her thighs, hers loud and clear against his exposed flesh. After that, she doesn’t waste time, knowing he’ll go straight for the prize, too. She licks her lips, then carefully closes them around the head of his cock, and gives him a gentle suck that makes him hum in pleasure, yes, an actual hum, she can tell. Oh, how she can tell.

In the end, it’s strangely tender; they’re both wary of hurting each other if they move too rapidly, so instead, they build each other up gently, with teasing licks and soft kisses that make heat gather slowly but surely in Raven’s lower belly. She doesn’t have enough room to bob her head properly, but she has two good hands, and her tongue, she knows, can do wonders, especially when she flicks it just like this, yes, exactly like this, good. Moan for me.

She’s so focused on him she almost forgets her own pleasure, but then he reminds her with one clever lick, then another, and she’s coming, coming, coming, his cock tucked under her chin, her hand still jerking him off haphazardly. Stubbornly, too, because by the time she’s done gasping for breath, he starts coming all over her chest.

When he pulls her to his lap afterwards, and holds her close for long, breathless minutes, he doesn’t say a word about the mess.


	13. Raven attempts to bake bread

Believe it or not, baking the first batch of bread actually takes them four years, two of which consist solely of Monty’s desperate attempts to grow wheat, or rye, or both. Once they have the grains, there is building proper tools for processing them, and once there is flour, someone has to build a proper oven. So by the end of year four, _someone_ is completely done with the very idea of bread, and ready to get it over with. She actually has a fleeting thought to drop it, but also: she did not built that fucking oven for nothing. So out of sheer stubbornness, Raven makes a bread starter.

Then another. And another.

“What’s the point of all that ancient history if there was no bread recipe there?” she asks Bellamy grumpily. “Didn’t they make bread all the time back then?”

“I saw a theory that it was…” he tries, then takes a proper look at her face. “Nevermind. Are you sure that’s mould?”

She ends up sending him to the kitchen just so she doesn’t kill him, and when ten minutes later he emerges with a fresh jar of bread starter in his hand, she just waves him off, because, whatever. It’ll go bad just like all the ones she’s made.

To everyone’s shock, it doesn’t.

Four days later, Bellamy has a jar of thick, bubbly goodness that Monty judges ready for kneading, and Raven goes livid trying to find out how he did it.

“I just followed the recipe,” he says as he carefully measures flour in a big bowl. “I have no idea how it didn’t work out for you.”

Neither does she, and out of some weird superstitious caution, she makes sure not to touch the dough he’s kneading. It’s better if he does it, anyway. Right? With those big hands of his, everything gets as much air as humanely possible, and that’s supposed to be the whole point of bread-making.

The first batch is fucking perfect, and Raven probably would hate Bellamy just a little bit if she wasn’t so busy stuffing her face. Same goes for another five batches, until she gets over her bad feeling, and decides to try again.

Which ends with her building three more ovens, kicking at least ten jars, and hours of carefully watching Bellamy’s face for a hint of a smile as he calmly kneads batch after batch.


	14. Bag of dicks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://ravenbells.tumblr.com/post/136683719484/iwaspromisedhedonism-ravenbells). I regret nothing. Also, succubitches made [the most beautiful photoset ever](http://succubitches.tumblr.com/post/137466909925/inspired-by-ravenbells-crack-fic-where-bellamy).

This is either the best or the worst idea ever. Which, to be fair, is quite typical of Monty’s ideas.

But it’s a long winter, there is leftover yarn, and Bellamy is bored out of his head. Still, it takes him two days to persuade himself that there is absolutely nothing useful he could do with those scraps (lies), that Raven needs some cheering up, and anyway, it’s been a long while since he last did something stupid.

“I’ll just make two or three,” he tells Monty sternly. “We don’t have time for this.”

Monty rolls his eyes.

“With all that ploughing and pruning we have to do now that we’re snowed in?”

Well, he does have a point.

***

When Raven opens the package, she looks like she’s about to choke.

“You knitted me a bag of dicks.”

“It’s crochet,” Bellamy responds automatically.

“There is a strap at the back, you can fit it to your belt,” explains Monty, unfazed. “You looked like a person who could use a bag of dicks.”

“To do what? Throw it at people who piss me off?”

“That was my general idea, yes.”

Bellamy shrugs when Raven looks carefully from Monty to him and back to Monty.

“Far it be for me to tell you what to do with your dicks,” he says in a serious voice. “Enjoy.”

When he turns back and starts walking away, he feels something soft and ballsy hit him square on the head.

“I don’t know what I expected.”

***

The village quickly grows accustomed to the fact that Raven keeps a bag of punitive dicks at her belt. It’s actually quite handy, especially when she’s in her workshop, and people start touching things they shouldn’t be touching. Or when someone says something stupid at the meeting. Or when someone tries cutting a line to the bathroom.

Or any other time, really.

There is a little bit of fuss when Jasper gets a dick for holding a wrench in a way Raven deems wrong. Also: that one time Raven throws five dicks into Miller’s window before he stops moaning so fucking loudly. To Miller’s credit, he brings them all back to her in the morning, and even utters something resembling an apology. 

The first time Bellamy actually has a reason to worry is when he sees Raven strap on her bag when they’re heading to Camp Jaha for another round of endless negotiations.

“Raven, please. Tell me you won’t throw a yarn dick at Marcus Kane.”

For now, she makes a face, then throws one at him, but he’s smarter this time, and catches it mid-air.

***

On the next end-of-summer fair, Bellamy lets out a resigned sigh, goes to a yarn stall, and trades a pair of warm gloves for two skeins of bright pink.


	15. Bellamy + absent look or touch

No one ever tells Bellamy he does this.

Octavia was the first to notice, long ago, on the Ark. It’s just a small thing, a gesture he probably doesn’t notice, because no one has the heart to tell him. Not even O, not even when she cracks up watching him with Miller.

“God, he’s such a mother hen,” she mutters to Raven when Bellamy gives Miller a casual, friendly hug, then automatically reaches up to cradle the back of his head gently, as if he was handling a baby, not a grown-ass guy taller than himself. “You think he’ll ever lay an actual egg?”

Raven snorts.

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Even saw him do this to Kane once.”

“Was he sober?”

“A little bit sober.”

Bellamy comes up to them when they start howling with laughter, and of course he curls his palm over the nape of Raven’s neck when he asks what’s so funny. Of course he does.

“You’re laying eggs,” O informs him gleefully, and to Bellamy’s credit, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Well, if that’s all it is,” he says with a shrug, then leans to kiss Octavia’s forehead before going back to his chores.

If he gives Raven a knowing wink while he cradles the back of O’s head, she never tells.


	16. Miller + under the cover of darkness

The first time Miller sees darkness, he almost breaks a leg. 

Nothing was ever truly dark on the Ark, especially not on Alpha. The Council needed its lights to do important Council business, and to grow plants in small glass balls hanging from the ceiling. It’s crucial, a high ranking guardsman told Miller one day. People go a little wacky without something green to catch their eye from time to time.

Somehow it never occurred to Miller to share this particular piece of wisdom with the people he met in Skybox.

On the ground, darkness is blue, and green, and a little bit gray, and it surrounds you like a blanket if you know how to move together with it, instead of against it. This alone takes Miller a few years to understand. Moving against, it seems, is so much more in his nature than moving along. His dad could probably say something about it.

So his first night on the ground, he goes out bravely into the dark, brazen and curious, and stops not even when he stumbles, but when rocks and roots feel funny under his feet, alien and vaguely painful. That, too, is new. Not forcing it, but waiting for his feet to adjust, for his eyes to find landmarks and paths.

Then come months of wandering, of fumbling and stumbling, and moving with his hands stretched in front of him in panic, until he stops even paying attention to how different moonlight is from flashlights, or how much green catches his eye every day. 

Lately, when he steps back into what’s left from the Ark, the smooth metal paths feel foreign under his feet.


	17. Raven + subtle kindnesses

Raven knows people don’t exactly expect kindness of her.

It’s a good thing, in a way. She knows her affection has a bit of a gruff edge most days, and that puts people off even though she doesn’t mean it to, but that’s okay. When people don’t expect something, they can’t take it for granted; can’t reach out and take, knowing all too well that she is soft and easy, her heart way too big to say no to them. They don’t ask. She doesn’t have to reveal how easily she gives. She stays safe. It works out so well.

It works out so fucking well, after Finn and after Wick, after hands reaching out for her mind, her talent, her clever, clever hands. Raven fixes and Raven makes, Raven sleeps with her head on her worktop, exhausted and sore. If they take so much from her when they think she’s harsh, how much would they demand if they knew she is kind?

So she takes care to be guarded. And then she doesn’t.

It’s a long, hot day, and sweat is making her clothes stick to her skin no matter what she does, but it’s even worse for the people who work in the garden picking vegetables in full blaze. So, really, it’s no wonder that Monty finds her around lunch break, improvised scissors in his hands, and points to the sweaty mop on his head.

“Give me a hand, will you?” he asks easily. “It’s driving me nuts.”

She gestures him to sit on a low stool in front of her, and laughs as she reaches to a bucket of lukewarm water from the river, wets her hand, and tries to make Monty’s hair lie flat against his neck, frugal with her water out of habit. She’s so focused on cutting a straight line that she doesn’t even notice when Bellamy shows up with a fresh bucket, takes in the scene in front of her, and drops half a bucket straight on Monty’s head.

He emerges swearing and spluttering, then gives Raven a wounded look as if expecting her to commiserate, or at least not to laugh. When she does it anyway, he still hands her the scissors that she dropped when jumping away from the water, and turns his back to her.

Bellamy stays with them until she’s done cutting Monty’s hair short, then swaps places with him easily, and flexes his shoulders as if expecting payback. There is still half a bucket left after all. 

She drops it on his head herself, not waiting for Monty to make up his mind, and when she then combs her fingers through Bellamy’s wet hair, he leans into her touch with a low hum.


End file.
